March 2013 – Page 3 – The Unwanted Blog

Cat survives Indiana plane crash in wall of house

In short: a plane crashed into a house in Indiana about a week ago, trashing the place. The resident cat, Zuul, disappeared, only to pop out from the wall as the house was being torn down. Fortunately, that old nut Zuul was rescued by a construction worker.

It must be difficult enough for the human of the house to deal with the situation… everything is going along normally, when all of a sudden there’s a twin-engined aircraft in your house. Imagine what that must to to a cat.

Missing virus vial raises concerns at UTMB facility

Where we read that a vial of “Guanarito” virus has gone missing from a laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

“Guanarito” is also known by the name “Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever” and has a fatality rate of 23%. What’s extra-special is that Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever is spread through “aerosolized dissemination,” which typically means “sneezing.” A secondary meaning of the term is “hey, this stuff would make a great bio-weapon, sprayed out of a can on a train, bus or plane.”

Breaking Report: Assad Shot By Bodyguard – Hospitalized in Damascus

By this evening, the rumor had been “confirmed” by some of those minor news organizations, but still nothing from the bigs. Not even a mention of the rumor to shoot them down.

Admittedly, anytime a news article is based on Russian or Arab sources skepticism is called for, kinda like taking a televangelist at his word when he reports that the face of Jesus miraculously appeared on his bank account statement. But still, the rumor is very specific, easily shot down if untrue, and if true would be terribly important. So… nothing?

Just had a discussion with a friend where I suggested that, given dictatorial powers, I would immediately cut the US military budget in half. The 2013 budget calls for $672.9 billion for the DoD (out of $3.8 *trillion*), so this would cut the military budget to $336.45 billion, with of course a $336.45 billion savings. With such savage and immediate cuts, the military would have to cut back on a lot of stuff. Foreign bases, for instance. The war in Afghanistan would end just as soon as we can load up all our stuff on C-17s and C-5s, and blow up and otherwise demolish the infrastructure we built there.

One might argue that this would leave the US and US interests vulnerable. Well, I have an answer to that.

Of that $336.45 billion saved, I would devote $100 billion per year to the specific goal of building at least two low Earth orbit military bases. Not trivial nonsense like the ISS or Skylab, but Honest To Odin orbiting cities, population at least 5,000 each. Rotation would provide artificial gravity. And not weeny lunar gravity, Mars gravity or even Earth gravity; at the outer rim, at least 1.5 G’s. This would be where IV Marine Expeditionary Force does its training; this would toughen and strengthen them so that at a moments notice they could board dropships and beat the tar out of anyone who has captured or kidnapped American citizens, anywhere in the world. And other sorts of military capability the US needs could be dealt with via B-52s, B-1s, B-2s and Ohio-class Trident missile submarines. If the US Army needed to invade a place, that would occur after it had been bombed to rubble.

Yes, a space base with this sort of capability would be vastly expensive (thus the $100B/year budget). But unlike an Army base in South Korea or a Navy base in Scotland, a space base for the US Military would aid the *US* economy. Just as the US expanded across North America a century and a half ago with US Army forts on the frontier, US military “space forts” would serve as the precursors to further expansion. And these military installations would need to be serviced by commercial interests; companies would compete not only to build them, but to supply them. And as with every military base ever, civilians would surround the base. Not only family members, but the people who maintain the base, provide entertainment and other services, and so on. We don’t get that from, say, bases in Afghanistan or Somalia.

Discuss.

PS: The 2013 budget has $940.9 billion for Health & Human Services + Medicare + Medicaid, and $882.7 Billion for Social Security. In the interests of not being controversial, I would not cut those budgets. What I would do is make sure all the checks are made out at the First Federal Bank of Low Earth Orbit, and can be cashed only there. This would seem to satisfy everyone, don’t you agree? You want welfare… go get it. Once Clavius Base is up and running, the welfare functions would be transferred *there.* And then on to Olympus Mons…

Poetry time. Why not.

“Ulysses” by Tennyson is one of those poems that has become part of common parlance, or at least a few bits of it have. It is written as a monolog by King Ulysses of Ithaca, of “Iliad” and “Odyssey” fame. Set long after the events of those books, Ulysses is old and bored out of his mind by the day-to-day life of a king. He yearns to get Back Out There and adventure again. When Tennyson published this back in 1842, this was considered fully understandable and praiseworthy, but these days it is seen as a character flaw… he should be more devoted to his duties at home. While I can see both sides to that, I can see that this poem reflects basic human nature. We all know old soldiers who, decades after last being on the battlefield, still recall their time in hell with an odd wistfulness; horrible though it may have been, there is a nostalgia for it. Excitement and adventure, not to mention the doings of great deeds, hold considerable sway over the minds of men.

The space program has taught us this lesson again. How many early astronauts, up through the Apollo program, went to the literal heights that man could achieve, and then fell to Earth and landed in a depression or a bottle?

“Ulysses” ends with some of the greatest, most inspiring lines in the English language. We may not be the heroes of old, but damnit, we will do our best.

I’ve highlighted some of what I think are the best lines…

—————————–

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,–
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me–
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads–you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Report: North Korea ordered its foreign diplomats to become drug dealers

Claim: North Korea sent 20 kilos of meth to each of several diplomats with instructions to sell it and raise $300,000. Apparently there is a pretty substantial official government meth production program, worth hundreds of millions of $$ per year, used to sell to foreigners (including, perhaps unwisely, the Chinese). But it’s breaking out into the North Korean populace as a whole. Famine, despair and methamphetamines: what better combination could there possibly be?